‘Better Luck Tomorrow’ w/ Alain Uy

Full Transcript of Technicolor Theatre podcast: Season 2, Episode 7

Aditya chats with actor, producer, and director Alain Uy on the importance of being given a chance to fail, meeting Justin Lin on the set of True Detective, and the wild, irrepressible spirit of Lin’s solo directorial debut Better Luck Tomorrow (2002).

The episode aired on October 15, 2020 under the podcast’s previous name, Token Theatre, and can be found here. Full transcript (below) was captured by Madelyn Gee.

Aditya Joshi: Hello, and welcome to Token Theatre, a Mediaversity Reviews podcast about representation on film. I’m your host Aditya Joshi and I’ll be joined today by Alain Uy — a writer, director, producer and actor who stars in the upcoming Marvel horror TV show Hellstrom, which releases on Hulu October 16. He’s also the star of The Paper Tigers, a kung fu action comedy that’s set to release in the spring of 2021. Alain and I have a great conversation about Better Luck Tomorrow, the solo directorial debut of Justin Lin.

But before we get to that, I just wanted to give you all a quick heads up that this will be a special one-off episode drop of Token Theatre. We will return from our break later this fall with new guests, new movies and a new name. But until then, here’s my conversation with Alain Uy on Better Luck Tomorrow.

Aditya: Joining me today, now that he has finished shooting free throws in his parents backyard is Alain Uy.

Alain Uy: What a great intro. Oh my god, I’m terrible at shooting free throws too. So there you go.

Aditya: It’s so great to have you on the show. Thank you for making the time.

Alain: Thank you for having me, man. I really appreciate what you guys are doing here. It’s definitely something I really wanted to do.

Aditya: Awesome. The movie you brought today is Better Luck Tomorrow. Justin Lin’s 2002… Not his first movie, but one of his very first movies before he fell into the whirlwind of the Fast and Furious franchise.

Alain: Right. Justin Lin, man. It’s 2002? Really? Wow, it’s been a long, long time. Geez. 18 years?

Aditya: I was gonna say we will probably delve into Justin’s filmography a bit later. As I was watching this movie, I had never seen it before we decided to talk about it for the podcast. As I was watching it, I was like, “Man, Justin Lin has so much cool stylistic stuff going on. There’s some really interesting camera choices here. I wish he had done more over the last 18 years.”

Alain: I think that’s what’s interesting about his career. When you first get introduced to the film Better Luck Tomorrow, there really are a lot of stylistic things. Upon rewatching it, I was really worried about rewatching it because of the fact that things could be dated like you said. I didn’t realize it was 18 years, but I knew it was in the early aughts or at least mid aughts or something like that. But the fact that a lot of the stylistic things that he executed in that film still work today, I think is a testament to him as a filmmaker. I think what’s even more interesting is I’m a huge fan of David Fincher. There was a little bit of The Social Network vibe to the way we got introduced into this world? I just thought looking back on it and watching it again, “Oh, this really holds up really well.”

Aditya: Before we get too deep into the movie, which for those of you who are listening who have not seen it, go watch it. It’s about a bunch of honor roll Asian kids in LA who get bored with their honor roll lifestyle and start committing petty crimes until it of course reaches its inevitable conclusion. Before we get into the movie too deeply, I’d love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, how you identify and what you’ve been up to.

Alain: Yeah, my name is Alain Uy. I am an Asian American living in Los Angeles. More specifically, I’m half Chinese and half Filipino. I immigrated here when I was six with my family and have been living here ever since I’ve been. I’m an actor. I’m a director, writer and I own my own production company called Them Too. I’m a father, and that’s how I roll. That’s how I identify.

Aditya: Amazing. What was it like, the first time that you saw Better Luck Tomorrow?

Alain: This was in the beginning for me, my journey into acting. It’s one of those films that as an actor coming up, to see and to hear that it’s about kids or people that you might relate to, I think it really piqued my interest. I was really excited when I was reading some of the articles that were coming out of Sundance and some of the reporting that was happening for this. It really piqued my interest. I was really hoping that someone would get the distribution right so that I could see it. Then when MTV picked it up, I just remember thinking to myself, “Oh my god, this is gonna be big.” I’m sitting there watching TV while I’m going to college and like, “Oh my god I’m seeing a commercial of these Asian guys in this movie.”

I was stoked. I remember distinctly when I first watched it thinking, “Oh my god this is a window into a world that is reflective of what I see or what I grew up with.” I certainly identify with a lot of the characters. I saw my friends in these characters as well. It was one of the most profound things that happened to me not only as an Asian American person that lives in LA, but really as an actor too that there are filmmakers and people who are creating narratives based on my community.

Aditya: Something that I think this film does really well and I think there’s maybe one of the earliest instances I’ve seen in film is that it takes the “the smart kids have lives too” theme. They are willing to take risks and have emotions that are more than robotic, intelligent things that are often the periphery of most of these high school movies. I feel like a lot of the high school movies that were popping up in the late ’90s, early 2000s… The 10 Things I Hate About You is a big one that sticks out in my mind.

They focus very heavily on the idea that like all the cliques were pretty much just what the cliques were. Mean Girls is another one that does that. Now in the last couple years, we’re seeing like Booksmart, which is like what if the smart kids also liked parties. I feel like this is one of those movies except for it’s 15 years ahead of any other movie like it. It stars an all Asian cast and Asians always get stereotyped as those honor roll kids without anything else going on.

Alain: Right. I think it definitely challenges the model minority myth. I think that was the biggest conversation piece that was going around at the time. I think that’s what’s really interesting about the film is that there is this superficial idea of what Asian Americans or Asians are. It delves into what impact that kind of pressure has on Asian Americans. It’s in some ways, I see it now as a piece that highlights mental health and what that means to have that. All these characters…upon rewatching it, you start to see how they address those issues and how they don’t address those issues.

The Jason Tobin character to me is such a unique character. I know people like that, that are being broken inside their head as to what’s real, what’s not real and what counts. I can certainly relate to that. It’s like a tip of the iceberg, like I said. It really is a character study on what it is to feel like or go through life as an Asian American in LA.

Aditya: This was one of the first movies I’ve seen do this…show a bunch of nuance within the community. I’ve talked about this on previous podcasts, but even movies like The Big Sick, which I would consider a landmark for representation or not so nuanced in their portrayal of Indian American families. This is like, look at these five Asian kids, all of whom have similar grades and do similar activities, but are very, very different in personality and intention.

Alain: That’s exactly right.

Aditya: I think it was probably important to see that. What was your experience seeing yourself on screen or not seeing yourself on screen before Better Luck Tomorrow came out?

Alain: That’s the thing I’ve wrestled with throughout my life really, as an immigrant, for one and also as an actor is trying to figure out what my identity is. You mentioned earlier, how do you identify? Well, that definition of identity has changed throughout the years of living here. In this instance, before Better Luck Tomorrow, what did we see on TV? A lot of the media that was portrayed is like Long Duk Dong in that movie. It was a common occurrence, at least in my high school and junior high where that particular character was referenced. There have been many instances where I’ve been called Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. These two icons are great. These are great to be compared to. I should have at the time been embracing it saying, “Yeah, I’d love the fact that you’re calling me the Michael Jordan of martial arts.” Yet, I found myself rejecting it saying, “No, I don’t want to be that because I’m more than that. On top of that, I’m not a really good martial artist to begin with anyway soI don’t want that kind of pressure.”

I’ve come full circle now where I’m sitting here as a father and learning how do I impart to my son my heritage and what that means to me. I think before Better Luck Tomorrow, there was this, in some ways a reticence to identify as Asian, at least for me. I’m talking from my personal experience that a lot of my friends were reluctant to go to an Asian quote unquote club, a dance club. Where it’s like, “Oh, it’s all Asian guys, or Asian people, right?” They wanted to go to more secular clubs, where it’s more diverse and more white. But now that’s come full circle as well. I think for me before the movie came out, it was more like, “Well, there’s really nothing else out there for me to watch and it’s hard for me to relate to the films that we were watching at the time.” Then to see that happen, it was a watershed moment for me. It really opened up my eyes. It made me see how big this world could be and it had a profound and lasting impression on me as I moved forward through not only my career, but also my life.

Aditya: You’ve really come full circle because you’re playing a kung fu star in one of your new projects coming out next month.

Alain: Yeah, you know, The Paper Tigers is an indie film about growing old and what that looks like. It is a kung fu film, but before I delve too far into that, there was a conversation that me and my reps had about the film before taking it on. They asked me, “Hey, how do you feel about doing a martial arts film?” They asked me very plainly, “Is that something you’d be interested in?” In some ways they were posing the question of, “Is this something you’d be interested in as an Asian American? Do you feel as if this might be perpetuating something that at some point was maybe maybe seen as negative?” As I said earlier, when I was younger, I felt it as a negative. But the one thing that we all look for as actors is to tell a story that is truthful and that it is not a farce in any way.

I’ve certainly been in situations in the past where I’m doing a role where it really dances the line of “this is funny” to “this is just offensive.” But in this instance, Bao Tran who wrote and directed it, really had a firm grasp of what it is to be an Asian American and what it is to do a film like this in our community. This is more or less a love letter to all the great films that have come to play in the inspiration of writing this film. I played a semi-washed up kung fu artist who has to band together with his old friends to avenge the death of their seafood. That’s the setup. It’s a comedy. It’s an action comedy.

Aditya: That’s so interesting because I often think the same way as a writer. As I’m writing films about the Indian American community, not only do you have a responsibility to tell a story that you find interesting, you also have to think about what you’re saying about the community writ large. Just because there is not enough representation still for people to see your movie and be like, “Oh, this is one of many.” I referenced The Big Sick earlier. That’s a great example of people being like “Oh, yeah, Indian culture. I’ve seen The Big Sick…Slumdog Millionaire was a big one, where I was going to India and they’re like, ‘Oh, Slumdog Millionaire, dope, amazing. I know India.’”

I think this movie Better Luck Tomorrow does a really interesting thing with…it is true to life, because it’s based on a true story of a bunch of Asian kids murdering another honorable kid. But it feels like a very relatable and go off the rails moment. I think if you’ve ever been someone who was an honor roll student or a straight A student in high school who was like “There’s got to be more to life than coasting through school and being the Asian kid on the basketball team.”

Alain: Yeah, I think that’s what’s really interesting about the film, like I said, is that it really delves into the nuances of these characters. I think creating characters that have depth to them and that actually approach conflict in a way that that we could all relate to. In this instance, the absurdity of their circumstance of them really trying to live. I can look back on my high school years of experiencing certain pressures and ideals that I need to adhere to and thinking like, “Is there something else beyond this? What is beyond this high school graduation? What’s adult life? What’s that going to look like?”

Like anything else, we all rebel against this ideal of us trying to conform to this notion of what our parents may or maybe our society has put on us. I think that’s what that film does is it goes into…Yes, it’s very absurd, but it’s very real. Like you said, you can be pushed to the point of like, “I want to experience what life is about” and get into a situation where you fall into the wrong crowd. Next thing you know, you’re dealing with a situation where now you have to clean up some guy’s blood on the ground. Again, sorry, spoiler alert everybody. We should have said that earlier. I think to that point, it is a powerful film in that regard.

Aditya: Well, the expectation point is really interesting. I think Ben, the main character, deals with expectation in a couple ways that made me think about my own upbringing…we can dive deeper into specific instances and scenes in the film now, but the whole opening bit where he’s on the basketball team, my immediate reaction when I was watching that when he was auditioning or trying out — See how long it’s been since I played sports? — I was worried he was gonna get cut because he was Asian.

Alain: Right?

Aditya: It’s like a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” If you don’t make it, then you’re like, “Ah, well, you’re not gonna be Asian kid on a team full of tall non Asian kids. If you make it like they did within the movie, they’re like, “You made it because they need one Asian kid.”

Alain: I think that’s a great conversation piece to have now, which is one of those situations where, I’ll give you an example. Black Panther did great, Crazy Rich Asians that great. In this instance, where people are providing more opportunity or there’s opportunity there where people who say yes or no to projects are looking at these potential other creators and writers that are Asian American, of Asian ethnicity or Asian point of view. There is that feeling of like, “Are you doing this because it’s one of those things you have to do? Is it virtue signaling?” In addition to that, is it one of those things where you’re only going to give me this opportunity to see if I can replicate the success of Crazy Rich Asians?

In going back to the Ben Manibag character. He’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” like you said. So, if that writer or that person is creating a film about Asian Americans or the Asian point of view, will they have the grace to fail? Then will the person after that have the same opportunity, even though this guy failed? I guess what I’m saying is we can’t all be Crazy Rich Asians. Will the industry allow us that grace to have that? In some ways, that’s the Ben Manibag character, which is like, “Do I have grace to fail here?” I think that’s sort of indicative of the current situation now in filmmaking.

Aditya: That’s a really good point. You can’t all be Jeremy Lin. Some of you will have to be bad and on the bench.

Alain: Exactly.

Aditya: I think with minority creators, generally, there is an expectation that you will only be a visible creator if you’re making things that succeed, I think like a higher clip than a creator of no melanin, if you will.

Alain: That’s part of how everything is now. Give me some chance to fail here and work my way through this.

Aditya: How have you felt that pressure playing out or that expectation playing out on your own writing and directing work?

Alain: I think for me, the pressure is definitely there. It’s one of those things where you’re looking through scripts, people submit scripts to my production company every day. You’re weeding through it saying, “Okay, what is my goal as a person who’s going to produce this for one and is it something that really will contribute to the current ongoing conversation about diversity and seeing different points of views?” That’s me through the lens of a producer that’s the head of a quote unquote small production company. But as a writer and director, I’m always constantly trying to figure out how am I going to attack this story? What am I really trying to do? What’s the theme here? What am I talking about? Justin Chon comes to mind as a person who has really latched on to that directive saying, “What kind of points of views can I share with the bigger audience?” I don’t know if you saw Gook, but that’s an interesting world there in terms of what’s the other story on the other side of the coin in terms of what the riots were like in LA but through the perspective of a Korean American family. I think that’s wonderful.

The pressure is there to create those films or create those stories but it’s a good pressure. I would rather have that pressure than no one giving me any pressure to do anything at all, because that means no one cares. I think that pressure is indicative of self-inflicted pressure, but also of pressure amongst the community of creative writers that we’re keeping each other accountable. Like, “Okay, I’m doing this. What are you doing there? Oh, that’s fantastic. I need to think about that.” I think in some ways, that’s the pressure that we all feel is to make sure we are holding our community and our stories in the way that tells the truth.

Aditya: That’s such an interesting point. Something that was interesting to me about Better Luck Tomorrow is that it’s never really…to your point about your childhood experience, it’s really weird in this movie that all their friends are Asian and and then there is an Asian love interest, and that her boyfriend is also Asian. All the main characters are Asian, and everyone’s like, “Yeah, all the Asians just hang out and that’s fine.” I think growing up, I definitely had a thing against that. Now as I’ve gotten older and become more embroiled in the film communities, most of the new friends I find myself making in the entertainment world are brown, I think just because of that community aspect. Like you said, we’re going to stick together, we’re going to like to share lessons and learnings from interacting with people outside the community who are trying to help us make our stories, but we may have to provide additional context to them. I’m in the process right now of developing and pitching a feature that I have someone attached to around production companies. I find myself, of course, most drawn to the people that are brown and understand the experience.

I feel like there’s something that is additive there, which is having someone in your corner who fully understands the context of the story you’re trying to tell. Especially when, in this particular case of this feature, the story is not about reckoning with being Indian. Much like Better Luck Tomorrow, being Indian informs the identities of our characters or in this, being Asian informs what the characters Better Luck Tomorrow do and how they’re perceived. But the story is not about their Asian-ness.

Alain: Right.

Aditya: How do you balance that both as a producer and a writer and director, telling stories about your identity, or telling stories formed by the identity?

Alain: It’s one thing to welcome the perspective of people who might not understand this world. But it’s also another side to it by trying to cater to somebody like that. I think for me, I think it’s important to have someone on my staff who doesn’t know this world, who doesn’t know the world that we’re introducing them to. I’ll give you an example. I’m writing a story about this Filipino or Southeast Asian, I should say, subculture about fighting spiders. As kids, you grab spiders and you bet on them. It’s a cultural thing. It’s this weird world. There’s something about the kids. The circumstances are what creates the conflict in some way. But the characters still are very human.

I think in some ways, having somebody there as a writing partner who doesn’t understand this world, can provide questions that I haven’t even thought of because it’s so second nature to me, as to what this world is. I think finding that balance of finding someone who…I guess what I’m saying is I wouldn’t shut the doors and say, “Okay, if you don’t understand this world forget it. Don’t come in.” I think it’s important to be able to share these stories because at the end of the day, there might be something that that person might have that is related or they can relate to it through their culture or through their eyes. I think that’s how I have always approached producing, writing and directing is to get perspectives that would at the very least help me define what I’m trying to do.

Aditya: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There’s a fine line between explaining for an audience that may never understand or being overly explanatory about the world. The point of the story is not to explain the world. The point of the story is to explore the people in the world.

Alain: Right, right.

Aditya: I’m like being so closed off that no one can understand. There’s a fine line to walk.

Alain: Right. I think that is very bad because you don’t want to be patronizing the people watching this because I really think audiences are smart. If they’re specifically seeking out your film, there is an inherent knowledge as to what this film can be. I think if we cater too far to people, and I hate to use the word dumbed down, but really adjusted and over-explain something, then it really starts to deteriorate, at least at the core of the idea and the creative behind it.

Aditya: Yeah, for sure. Bringing it back a little bit to Better Luck Tomorrow. We talked a bit about basketball stuff, We talked about the underexplored lives of smart Asian kids. What are some other things in the movie that you saw, whether on this watch or the first few watches, that really hit you thematically?

Alain: I think a few of the things upon watching it again are the wardrobe, the style, the era, even. You open up to this gated community. I think it’s such a powerful image of us entering this world, where, at least for me, I had a lot of friends that grew up in that neighborhood of West Covina and pockets of LA where it immediately reminded me of that life. I’m Filipino and half Chinese and going over a friend’s house who was Korean or going over a friend’s house who’s Chinese. It’s so strange. We were just talking just now about that second nature connectedness that you have in a community. It’s so hard to describe that feeling of like, “Oh, wow. Yeah. Are your parents going to be okay with me coming over? Do we have to talk about school?” There’s all this stuff that automatically comes into your emotion and your spirit that I don’t know if people who didn’t grow up in this community can relate to.

I think that’s certainly something that comes out when I watched the film or when I have watched the film. The one thing that strikes me in the film, like you said, is Roger Fan’s character where he meets up with that stereotypical jock at that party? Where they come in contact with each other. That stereotypical jock guy that goes, “Yeah, you’re nobody.” Although it’s stereotypical, I used to get that a ton as a kid growing up. It’s like you’re less than. How could you be better than me? I’ve always felt I’ve always been made to feel that way. Those are the things that really pop up for me. I connect well with Roger Fan’s character because of the fact that I’ve been in many ways that guy who is like, “Hey, man, I got an idea. Why don’t we do this?” There’s always something forward thinking about that character that I really enjoyed. I think at least try to reverse or be subversive with using what people think about you as an advantage to lay low and really mess with them later. To have that tack later where it’s like, “Oh, you didn’t think I was able to do this so I’m going to use your ignorance to my advantage.”

Aditya: He’s a senior class valedictorian. That’s the archetype that he is. He’s the guy that runs the Academic Decathlon. He has the letter jacket for tennis, not for any other sport in the school that people get excited about. He’s the classic…more so than any of the other characters, actually more so than like Han or Virgil. He is the classic Asian model minority but he’s also the one who pulls the gun for the first time, initiating the string of much more aggressive crime. He eventually kills John Cho, buys Jason Tobin’s character Virgil and Ben both a prostitute in Vegas. He does all these outrageous things. Because he’s the kid who gets A’s and everything, he can’t do anything half halfway. If he’s gonna be harder, he’s gonna do it in every sense of the word.

Alain: It’s that character to me is the linchpin of all this the entire conflict which is let me introduce you to this and to this world and let’s keep pushing it and pushing it. That character speaks volumes to me with every issue that I’ve come up with is like, “Do you act this way? Do you act like this guy?” These are choices that we’ve all taken. What’s really interesting to me is that you mentioned Han’s character just physically, you look at him and you go, “Oh, that’s the bad guy.” He rolls up, he smokes. He’s the only dude with a car. He’s got this attitude. But really, he’s not. It’s the guy that you least expect it to be, which is the Roger Fan character.

Aditya: I grew up in Kansas City where there were no Asian people. I was the only Indian kid in my graduating class and there were maybe one or two Chinese kids. And when I got to college, I grew up with the same stereotype. I think the stereotype Better Luck Tomorrow breaks is that, other than me, the Asian kids are model minorities. They are straight-laced honors students. I got to school and I was like, “Oh man, a lot of these Asian kids, they drink so much. They go out constantly. They don’t do it in the pockets.” In the same way that these characters in the movie don’t do it in the pockets of the popular kids at the school that are off on their own thing, railing lines of cocaine and riding to Vegas. It’s just like that. You can tell that they take so much pride in being able to go to Vegas and get royally destroyed and then win the Academic Decathlon like the next day.

Alain: I think that’s what’s really interesting, right? One of the films I really wanted to do had they done it right is 21.

Aditya: The blackjack movie?

Alain: Yes, with Kevin Spacey. Do you remember this? The source material is from a Ben Mezrich book. I forget the title, but they were all Asian. They literally ran through Vegas, figured out a way to card count and made a killing out of the algorithms that they created to read cards. Part of what you and I were talking about now is that the reason why they were so successful, is that because they were Asian, they literally submersed everybody and no one even thought to think that these guys are having this illegal card counting. They changed the game.

Aditya: It couldn’t be the Asian kids. Gotta be someone else.

Alain: I also think that’s an interesting conversation to have to being Asian American is that, at least these characters have tried to do to stand out or to figure out a way to go against this model minority of like, “Oh, Asian Americans are quiet, they’re studious ir they just adhere to some They follow directions or they follow authority.” This is the complete opposite of that. That’s why I think it’s important to watch Better Luck Tomorrow because it does give the extreme side of following or not addressing these types of stress directly.

Aditya: It’s a generational rebellion kind of thing. Which in this movie manifests itself interestingly because you don’t ever see any of the parents. John Cho’s parents are mentioned offhand. Roger Fan’s parents are nowhere to be found. I don’t think you even met Ben’s parents?

Alain: No. There’s no parents in the whole movie.

Aditya: Which I think is great I think, because otherwise you would be like, “Oh, these Asian kids are just trying to buck their parents’ expectations for them.” But if you remove the parents from the equation then you’re like, it’s not just the parents that expect these things for them. It’s like they expect these things for themselves. Society, their school, they have all these expectations and these burdens are being placed on them from everywhere, including internally. It’s much more satisfying. It is more satisfying than it should be to see a kid put a gun on another high school kid. It is a cathartic moment in the movie because you’re like, “This is a breakthrough from all the pressure that they’ve been feeling to be this model minority.”

Alain: You just reminded me of the feeling that I had the first time I watched it. There was a feeling of like, “Yes. Finally, someone standing up to that kind of abuse.” I thought it was, like you said, very cathartic. But I will add something to what we were talking about with the parents. I do remember having a lot of friends who are latchkey kids, where their parents were running restaurants, and they just weren’t around. I remember going to friends’ houses where I would never see the parents at all. The food would be there, I would come over, we would study and play some video games. That would be it, I would go home. I think, although it could have been a creative choice not to have the parents there. I also saw a little bit of the reality that these parents are so busy in a dual income sort of situation, whether they’re running a restaurant or whatever other profession they might have. I think that’s just a window to what these kids were going through, of, like you said, being self reliant, being self motivated and self propelled. I think there’s a lot going on there that I really enjoyed.

Aditya: It’s another way to exemplify the nuance in the community because Stephanie, who we haven’t even talked about. Stephanie, Karin Anna Cheung, Ben’s love interest. She’s adopted in the movie, her parents are white. John Cho’s from a rich Asian family. You get the sense that Ben, Han and Virgil are all from middle class families and their parents are never around. Not every Asian parent is an engineer or a shop owner.

Alain: That’s exactly right.

Aditya: There are levels to all of this stuff. I want to talk a little bit about the John Cho character because John Cho is the biggest star to come out of this movie. I guess it’s maybe debatable whether you could call John Cho or Justin Lin the more successful star. But I think John Cho is probably the most recognized Asian American actor in the West.

Alain: I totally forgot that John Cho was in this. When he showed up, I was like, “Oh my God. That’s right. John Cho is in this film.” Quick side note. I was doing season two of True Detective and Justin Lin directed the first three episodes. It was so great to chat with him about the movie and I’ve always wanted to tell him how much it influenced me. I finally had the opportunity to let him know quickly as he was sort of being pulled in many directions. I was just like, “I just want to say Better Luck Tomorrow, man. That really affected me more than I thought it ever would.” Being on set now, that really drove me to continue on with whatever I was trying to do. I did get a chance to thank them.

Aditya: That’s amazing. I think especially as a director, you must have been Justin Lin is an Asian American kid making movies. Fast and Furious movies especially, that must be a huge deal. I think I’ve always thought about “Well, the natural thing for someone from our background is to tell stories about our community. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to direct Star Wars.” Then you realize this guy directed six Fast and Furious movies, True Detective and he’s directing Hot Wheels or something next year. It’s crazy.

Alain: I think that’s trust. I think we mentioned earlier about things like, “Will you give me an opportunity to fail?” I’m sure he’s had not so successful moments, but the fact that they’ve trusted him and said, “Hey, you know what, you’re more than just the token Asian director. You’re just a director.” I think that’s what we all strive for is to say, “Yes, you see me for my merit and see me for my talent.” It’s like anything else, how do we get to that position where we are seen? It takes a lot of us to pull together to make it work.

Aditya: He led this wave of Asian American directors who have come up in the last 10, 15, 20 years, James Wan is another one who’s big who’s also helming a bunch of big franchises. There’s one more I had in my head. I was gonna say the guy who does all the Atlanta stuff here.

Alain: Yeah, Hiro Murai. I mean, he just did something with FKA twigs. They’re in a coffee shop. They’re like samurai, ninjas or whatever. Oh my God, just the visuals of this guy are intense. All of these filmmakers, at least for me, really inspire me to continue and start to be better. I mean, they’re so talented and so amazing that you’re just sitting there going, “Oh, my God. Okay, cool. Okay, chill. Chill out.”

Aditya: So many of them are visionary auteur-y times which is maybe why they’ve had the success that they’ve had as minorities in the industry.

Alain: Cary Fukunaga. John Chu. They’re standard bearers at this point, in terms of Asian filmmaking and storytelling. They’re amazing. Very, very inspirational.

Aditya: I think just for delving into this category, we’ll shift gears a little bit and talk about the lasting legacy of Better Luck Tomorrow. John Cho, I think after this movie did so well. He had done Yellow and some other Asian specific movies before that. Then he hit Harold and Kumar, and became my own personal John Cho, Kal Penn.

Alain: You know what’s funny? Something really interesting about John Cho is that I remember seeing him in auditions. I’m not even comparing myself to John Cho. I think John Cho is an extremely talented person. He was a half generation ahead of me. I do remember seeing him in auditions. I remember when he did, I think it was American Pie when it started to…

Aditya: Oh yeah. He is the MILF Guy.

Alain: That was the thing, right? I just remember eventually not seeing him in auditions. Still being in the auditions where you can hear the casting assistant going, “Oh, yeah. The offer is out to John Cho, we’re just waiting.” I’m sitting there going, “Why am I even auditioning for this thing?” But I’m applauding him at the same time, because I’m like, wow, he’s in that position where he’s getting offers. We all strive to be in that position. It’s just interesting to see that trajectory that he’s had. He’s a talented dude.

Even just watching Better Luck Tomorrow, there’s a certain ease that he has in his performance. There’s a command that he has that I think is really unique in this film. He definitely stands out to me in performance, and I don’t know if it’s because there’s now cachet with John Cho. I can’t remember if I felt the same way when I first watched it. But upon this recent rewatch, I’m like, “Man, this guy really has something there. It’s penetrating. You could see it. You can see it in his performances now.”

Aditya: It’s not just because he’s 30 and playing an 18-year-old.

Alain: Right, right. I don’t even think about that. Maybe that’s it.

Aditya: He’s a very likable persona, but he does a great job playing a douchebag but a douchebag that you can’t help but get upset when he’s killed because he’s John Cho. And again, having not seen it before I knew he was, I have a hard time separating it too.

Alain: Yeah, certainly.

Aditya: Apart from Justin Lin, John Cho and some of other big names that came out of this movie, when you think about Better Luck Tomorrow, do you think that it had a lasting legacy for the community or just for representation in general?

Alain: That’s difficult, because that was 18 years ago. I think if anything, it created a shift in understanding, at least for people like me, who are now in a position to create original scripted content or whatever it might be. I think it’s certainly empowered more people. But the sad reality is that I don’t think it made the kind of impact on a greater scale. In terms of the industry, I think more than anything, Crazy Rich Asians certainly has had a bigger impact in terms of casting. But during this time, it was still not a proven argument that an Asian American-led film can be bankable or you can make this. This was more of an outlier than anything at least through my interpretation of it. I don’t think it made a lasting impression or created any change in the industry. And that’s okay. It’s just how things are, it’s a slow moving industry. Up until this year, I think in the Academy…

Aditya: There’s a change in the guidelines.

Alain: The guidelines are a little different now. If anything, it has made me realize how much we haven’t changed. In the sense that, even the film that we’re talking about, Paper Tigers, the film that I was part of. It took eight years for them to film or to create, because they went through the studio route. One of the things that the studios have said was, “We love the story, it’s got a great heart and everything else. We’d be willing to give you guys, like four or five million to shoot it. But can we change the ethnicities? We could get Bruce Willis to do it — it’s not Bruce Willis but I’m just saying — we could get Bruce Willis to be the lead of this thing and we can make it.”

They stuck to their guns and said, “No, we don’t want to do that.” I would imagine that that’s a similar story that Justin Lin had to go through for this film. How do we make this a little bit more acceptable to the American palate? These are 15 plus years apart, but yet still going through the same thing. To answer your question, I don’t think it’s changed that much but it’s certainly inspired a lot of people like myself to keep pushing, keep trying to change and to be more inclusive in that regard.

Aditya: Yeah, I think something that I’ve noticed now from doing this podcast is when I talk about movies, especially from this time period…Real Women Have Curves is another one I think from the same year and the same Sundance. It was a big, big deal when it came out in the Library of Congress’s Film Registry. Nobody knows about the movie. The big thing to come out of it was America Ferrera. I think like these movies that were pockets of big time landmark representation in the early aughts, late ’90s, even as recently as early 2010s, the legacy ended up being that they launched the careers of a few of their stars. Then people were like, “Great, that movie only did well because it was John Cho or because it was America Ferrera.” The next one is like, “Oh, it’s because it’s Henry Golding. It’s because it’s Constance Wu.” There’s eventually going to be a point at which they are like, “It’s not just that these actors are great, which they are. It is that these stories are interesting to people and are worth being told.” To your point, we’re not there yet.

Alain: We’re not there yet. We’re not there. But we’re getting closer again, it’s a slow change, right? When you meet very young writers and very young directors, you want to lift them up as much as you can because they’re really the ones who are going to continue to change. I’m in the middle of my career now understanding where I am within the context of this industry. You’ll meet really young writers that have so much potential. You read their work and you’re like, “Holy shit this is amazing.” But then they’re mired in this rut of like, “How do I even get this thing made?” I think it’s important for the John Chos of the world and the John Chus of the world to look at these works and not be so far elevated where you can’t look down anymore.

Just remember there are people to help in their community. To give them a hand and say, “Hey, I like your story. How do we get it produced?” I think it’s incumbent upon a lot of those folks who have broken through the ceiling, so to speak, to create a platform or some kind of foundational thing for these writers and creatives to do it. That’s why I applaud HBO for doing the Visionaries thing. It’s like, here’s a platform for you to really flex. Those things are very important to me and I applaud everybody who tries to do that.

Aditya: Yeah, I’ve noticed a groundswell of that kind of thing happening in the South Asian community alone. There’s this new thing called The Salon that a couple friends of mine started that has a mentorship program. And then Visionaries you talked about. There was another writing lab that was just for people of South Asian descent, and there are all sorts of Asian American Writers Workshop, CAPE, The Blacklist, all these things that are popping up inside. I think you’re right, these things are starting to happen. Every Crazy Rich Asians that happens when we get a little farther down the line. It will push more money and more resources into these things.

Alain: I think that’s really, really important. Tan Kheng Hua, who is the actor who played Constance Wu’s mother in Crazy Rich Asians. She’s a really good friend of mine. She comes from Singapore. When she was doing the press here in LA, she was like, “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal here.” I forgot to look through her lens, which is that when she makes films in Singapore, it’s all Asian. It’s an all Asian cast. She eventually understood it. She went, “Oh, my God, I get it now. This is such an important landmark situation. But isn’t it interesting that it took 20+ years since Joy Luck Club for something like this to happen?”

You look at those markers like Joy Luck Club, Better Luck Tomorrow. Now Parasite, Crazy Rich Asians. All these little things are starting to pop a little bit. It’s just continued, like you said, keep pushing the momentum. It’s a big steep learning curve for everyone to understand what this is. But once it starts rolling, once people get it, they go, “Okay.” There are a lot of stories out there that are really interesting, and why not hear these stories?

Aditya: Alain, last question we ask everyone on the podcast, how has this movie shaped you as an artist that affected your work in the time since you saw it?

Alain: I think for me, it made me stop shooting free throws, because what’s the point? I think for me, it’s shaped me as an actor, one in the sense that you see your friends able to do roles that are bigger than your co-starring role that you’re getting. I think, even up until two years ago, my career has always been the option or the other, so to speak. I played roles where I was Hispanic, where they didn’t really know who I was. They said, “Okay, you kind of look Mexican. So your name is Miguel. Alright, great.” What it really allowed me to see was that there are roles out there that are more fleshed out and that you should strive for better. I remember getting an audition two years ago, where the character is the lead of a film. It’s a love interest. For whatever reason, it was difficult for me to relate to it, because I’ve been so used to roles that were not that. It was the best friend or the quirky, weird guy that’s over here. So understanding how that has programmed me, just the media itself and seeing my face not being represented well, has had that profound impact on me.

Adversely to that, watching Better Luck Tomorrow again, has reaffirmed like, “Oh yeah, there are characters like that. I can play those roles.” To me, that’s what this film has done for me is it has reassured the trust in filmmaking and that there are people out there who want to tell bigger stories.

Aditya: Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Before I let you go, anything you want to plug?

Alain: Yeah, I’ve got a show coming out on Hulu called Hellstrom. It’s a Marvel TV show that’s coming out October 16. Be on the lookout for that. I am really proud of that project. That really delves into, at least for the character I play — his name is Chris Yen. The depth in which they go in terms of dealing with trauma and family stuff, it’s interesting to see. I would love for anyone who’s listening to this to tune into that. If you’re a Marvel fan, if you’re not a Marvel fan, it’s a horror show, so it’s perfect because basically Halloween is canceled anyway.

Aditya: I saw the trailer and it looked quite frightening.

Alain: It’s the first time that Marvel has delved into this part of the universe, this part of the MCU, which is more horror and the content is a little bit more mature. This isn’t something that you would watch with your 10-year-old niece, nephew or your son or whatever it might be. So yeah, definitely be on the lookout for that.

Aditya: Awesome. Can’t wait to watch it. Alain, thank you so much for being here.

Alain: Thank you, man. I appreciate the time.

Aditya: Thank you for listening to Token Theatre, a podcast about representation on film. We are proud to be part of MediaversityReviews.com, a website dedicated to film criticism that takes diversity into account. Today’s guest Alain Uy is a writer, director and producer and the star of Hellstrom, an upcoming Marvel TV series set to air on Hulu on October 16. You can find Alain on Instagram (@alainuy). You can find me, Aditya Joshi on Instagram (@aditya.mov). You can find Mediaversity on Instagram (@mediaversityrev). Special thanks as always to our consulting producer Amanda Llewellyn. As a reminder, we will continue our short hiatus for just a little while longer coming back later this fall with new guests, new movies and a new name. Thank you so much for listening. If you miss us in the meantime, you can find all of our episodes on MediaversityReviews.com.

Mediaversity Reviews is a project that grades TV & films on gender, race, LGBTQ, disability, and more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to join the conversation!